Delphi complete works of.., p.181
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 181
METTAWAMKEAG
An Indian Tragedy
The scene is laid on the shores of Lake Mettawamkeag near the junction of the Peticodiac, and the Passamoquidiac Rivers. The sun is rising.
Enter Areopagitica, an Indian chief.
With The Encyclopedia — a brave of the Appendixes.
And Pilaffe de Volaille, a French Coureur des bois.
Areopagitica:
Hail, vernal sun, that thus with trailing beam
Illuminates with gold the flaming east,
Hail, too, cerulean sky that touched with fire
Expels th’ accumulate cloud of vanished night.
The Encyclopedia: Hail! Oh! Hail.
Pilaffe de Volaille: Hêle! Oh, hêle.
Areopagitica:
All nature seems to leap with morn to song,
Tempting to gladness the awakening bird,
E’en the dark cedar feels the gladsome hour
And the light larch pulsates in every frond.
Who art thou? Whence? And whither goest thou?
Pilaffe de Volaille:
Thrice three revolving suns have waxed and waned
Since first I wended hither from afar,
Nor knowing not, nor caring aught, if here or there,
Who am I? One that is. Whence come I? From beyond,
The restless main whose hyperboreal tide
Laves coast and climes unknown, Oh Chief, to thy sagacity.
From France I came.
Areopagitica: Hail!
(What Pilaffe de Volaille means is that he has been out here for nine years and lives near Mettawamkeag. But there is such a size and feeling about this other way of saying it, that it seems a shame that dramas of this kind can’t be acted.)
After they have all said “Oh Hail!” and “Oh Hêle,” as many times as is necessary, Areopagitica and The Encyclopedia take Pilaffe de Volaille to the Lodge of the Appendixes.
There he is entertained on hot dog. And there he meets Sparkling Soda Water, the daughter of Areopagitica.
After the feast the two wander out into the moonlight together beside the waterfall. Love steals into their hearts. Pilaffe de Volaille invokes the moon.
“Thou silver orb whose incandescent face
Smiles on the bosom of the turgid flood
Look deep into mine heart and search if aught
Less pure than thy white beam inspires its love,
Soda, be mine!”
Soda Water speaks:
Alas! What words are these! What thought is this!
Thy meaning what? Unskilled to know,
My simple woods can find no answer to the hearts appeal,
Where am I at?
Pilaffe de Volaille: Flee with me.
Soda Water: Alas!
Pilaffe: Flee.
Soda Water (invoking the constellations of the Zodiac):
Ye glimmering lights that from the Milky Way
To the tall zenith of the utmost pole
Illume the vault of heaven and indicate
The inclination of the axis of the earth
Showing sidereal time and the mean measurement
Of the earth’s parallax,
Help me.
Pilaffe de Volaille (in despair): “Oh hêle!”
Both the lovers know that their tragic love is hopeless. For them, marriage is out of the question. De Volaille is sprung from an old French family, with eight quarters of noble birth, a high average even at a time when most people were well born. He cannot ally himself with anything less white than himself. On the other hand Sparkling Soda knows that, after the customs of her time, her father has pledged her hand to the Encyclopedia. She cannot marry a pale face.
Thus, what might have been a happy marriage, is queered from the start. Each is too well born to stoop to the other. This often happens.
Standing thus in the moonlight beside the waterfall the lovers are surprised by Areopagitica and The Encyclopedia. In despair Sparkling Soda leaps into the flood. The noble Encyclopedia plunges headlong after her into the boiling water and is boiled. De Volaille flees.
Areopagitica vows vengeance. Staining himself with grape juice he declares a war of extermination against the white race. The camp of the French is surprised in a night attack. Pilaffe de Volaille, fighting with the courage of his race, is pierced with an Indian arrow. He expires on the spot, having just time before he dies to prophesy in blank verse the future greatness of the United States.
Areopagitica standing among the charred ruins of the stockaded fort and gazing upon the faces of the dead, invokes the nebular Hypothesis and prophesies clearly the League of Nations.
The same dramatic possibilities seem to crop up all through American history from Christopher Columbus to President Harding.
But to see the thing at its height it is better to skip about three hundred years in one hop and come down to what is perhaps the greatest epic period in American history, — the era of the Civil War.
This great event has been portrayed so often in the drama and the moving pictures that everybody knows just how it is dealt with. It is generally put on under some such title as the Making of the Nation, or The Welding of the Nation, or the Rivetting of the Nation, — or, The Hammering, or the Plastering, — in short, a metaphor taken from the building and contracting trades. Compare this: —
FORGING THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT
A Drama of the Civil War
The scene is laid in the Council room of the White House. There are present Abraham Lincoln, Seward, Staunton, Artemus Ward, and the other members of the cabinet.
Lincoln (speaking very gravely): Mr. Secretary, what news have you from the Army of the Potomac?
Staunton: Mr. President, the news is bad. General Halleck has been driven across the Rappahannock, General Pope has been driven across the Roanoke, and General Burnside has been driven across the Pamunkey.
Lincoln (with quiet humor): And has anybody been driven across the Chickahominy?
Staunton: Not yet.
Lincoln: Then it might be worse. Let me tell you a funny story that I heard ten years ago.
Seward (with ill-disguised impatience): Mr. President, this is no time for telling stories ten years old.
Lincoln (wearily): Perhaps not. In that case fetch me the Constitution of the United States.
The Constitution is brought and is spread out on the table, in front of them. They bend over it anxiously.
Lincoln (with deep emotion): What do you make of it?
Staunton: It seems to me, from this, that all men are free and equal.
Seward (gravely): And that the power of Congress extends to the regulation of commerce between the States, with foreign states, and with Indian Tribes.
Lincoln (thoughtfully): The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
(In the printed text of the play there is a note here to the effect that Lincoln did not on this particular occasion use this particular phrase. Indeed it was said by some one else on some other occasion. But it is such a good thing for any one to say on any occasion, that it is the highest dramatic art to use it.)
Lincoln (standing up from the table to his full height and speaking as one who looks into the future): Gentlemen, I am prepared to sacrifice any part of this Constitution to save the whole of it, or to sacrifice the whole of it to save any part of it, but what I will not do is to sacrifice all of it to save none of it.
There is a murmur of applause. But at this very moment, a messenger dashes in.
The Messenger: Mr. President, telegraphic news from the seat of war. General Grant has been pushed over the Chickahominy.
Lincoln: Pushed backwards or pushed forwards?
The Messenger: Forwards.
Lincoln (gravely): Gentlemen, the Union is safe.
The Russian Drama
(A) Old Style
THIS IS THE kind of play that used to deal with dear old Russia when there was nothing more dangerous there than the knout, and exile to Siberia, and the salt mines, and Nihilists with black whiskers and bombs as large as a plum pudding. The good old place is changed now. Life there, from what I can gather at a distance of six thousand miles, — which is all I propose to gather — seems in some way — how shall I say it, restrained, what one might call unhomelike. But in the dear old days there was a freedom and a space about Russia which reflected itself in the drama.
Here is the sort of thing that we used to gaze at spellbound in the middle eighties.
Scene: SIBERIA. A POST STATION
In the old days there was always a peculiar touch about the very word “Siberia,” — a sort of thrill, or chill, that you couldn’t get elsewhere. It suggested great empty spaces, a vast plain of snow broken with dark pine woods, and moujiks with long whips driving one-horse tarantulas over the frozen surface of the endless samovar. Everywhere was the tunga tufted here and there with vodka.
At intervals in the snow was a “post house,” a rude building made of logs with outhouses for shutting exiles in. Everywhere there were prisoners and nihilists with bombs, girls who had lost their fathers, wives who had lost their husbands, anarchists, Tartars, in fact a varied and cheerful lot. The prisoners moved around in little strings. They never got anywhere that I know of. They were just driven from play to play and from story to story.
The opening scene was always laid thus:
INSIDE THE POST HOUSE
It is a long room, with a fire burning at the side, a few rough chairs and tables, — only one person is in it, a moujik or sort of peasant servant in a tattered fur hat and a chewed-up fur coat.
The door opens with a burst of paper snow and in stride two Russian officers. They go to the fire and stick their hands out towards its warmth.
“It’s a cold night, Petroff.”
“A cold night, Dimitri Dimitrivitch, but not so cold as in the outshed where the exiles are, — ha! ha!”
Both officers laugh heartily.
This is a first class Russian jest.
“One of the dogs,” says Petroff, expanding his back to the fire, “fell in the snow on the march to-day.”
“And what did you do, Petroff?”
“I ordered him a touch of the knout. I think the dog died where he fell. Ha! ha!”
Both laugh heartily again. Petroff turns to the peasant servant.
“Here, dog, bring vodka.”
“At once, excellence, at once.” The moujik fumbles in a cupboard and brings a bottle and glasses.
Both officers drink.
“To the Czar, Petroff!”
“Dimitri; to the Czar!”
A Russian soldier with a gun and a bayonet about two feet long steps in and salutes.
“Excellence, a woman is outside.”
“A woman? Ha! What like of woman, Ivan?”
“Excellence, a young woman.”
“A young woman! Ha! Ha-ha-ha!”
The two officers strode up and down repeating, “A young woman, ha! Bring her in.” It is plain that they mean to eat her.
The soldier salutes and goes out and returns in a moment dragging in a girl by the wrist.
This is Nitnitska Nitouscha, and she is looking for her father. She is very beautiful, with her hair in two braids and a bright coloured schapska thrown over her head and shoulders.
Petroff grabs her by the wrists and twists her arm twice round and says “Ho! Ha! The girl is not ill to look at.”
Dimitri: And what want you here, pretty one?
Nitnitska: I am seeking my father.
Petroff gives her arm two more turns and says, “Your father?”
“Yes, he is among the prisoners.”
Both officers laugh— “Among the prisoners. Ha! ha!”
Dimitri steps up to the girl and twists her other wrist.
“And what might his name be, tell me that.”
Petroff takes her by the ear and twists it and says: “Yes, tell us that.”
“His name is written here on the paper and his is an old man, a very old man. He is too feeble to walk?”
Dimitri laughs brutally. “So! He is too feeble to walk? In that case we can help him with the knout. Ha! ha!”
He takes the girl by the other ear and turns it twice round.
“And what would you with your father?”
“I want his freedom.”
Both officers laugh. “His freedom. Ha! ha!”
“His freedom. See, on this paper, I have an order for his freedom signed by the Czar himself.”
“By the Czar?”
Both officers fall back from the girl repeating, “By the Czar?”
“Yes, here it is on the paper.”
Nitnitska hands over a paper. Petroff takes it and reads it aloud scowling —
“By command of His Imperial Highness and in accord with the signed order annexed, you are commanded to release into liberty the person of Vladimir Ilyitch!”
Petroff with a start, repeats the name “Vladimir Ilyitch.”
Nitnitska: Yes, yes, my father, Vladimir Ilyitch.
Petroff: Dimitri, a word in your ear.
They step aside.
“Vladimir Ilyitch. That dog that was struck down with the knout and left for dead—”
Dimitri nods. “That was his name.”
Petroff: The girl must never leave here alive.
Dimitri: No, we must choke her.
Petroff, turning towards Nitnitska, “Girl, we are going to choke you.”
Nitnitska: Cowards!
She has set her back against the wall near the window and looks at them defiantly.
“If you dare to choke me, you shall die. Look!” She draws forth from her dress a silver whistle on a chain. “I have but to blow upon this whistle and Basilisk Vangorod and his Tartars will fall upon the post.”
Petroff: Seize her!
They rush at her. Nitnitska blows a long blast on the silver whistle. Petroff and Dimitri start to choke her, both together, but before they get her more than half choked there is a sudden outbreak of gunfire outside. Ivan the sentinel rushes in —
“Excellence, the post is attacked by Tartars.”
Petroff, letting go the girl, “Call all the guards, every man to his post!”
The guards — three of them — rush in and begin firing through the windows. There is a tremendous quantity of firing outside. Presently a full sized explosion blows in the door. In rushes Basilisk Vangorod followed by his whole Tartar Army — four of them. The Russian guards are hopelessly outnumbered — four to three. They lay down their arms. Basilisk Vangorod rushes at Petroff and Dimitri, and fights them both in a sword combat which circles round the stage so that everybody can see a piece of it. As it concludes he kills Dimitri and Petroff, clasps Nitnitska in his arms, calls in her father (who is outside, not dead) and stands in the middle of the stage, waves his sword and says, “For the freedom of Russia. Long live the Czar!”
And the curtain falls.
The Russian Drama. (B) (New Style)
DAMNED SOULS
(A bright little tragedy of Russian home life, written with a little assistance by Maxim Gherkin, Shootitoff, Dustanashej and a few men like that.)
Scene: An underground lodging in Pinsk: water exudes from the walls: dim daylight comes through a half window. There is a crazy table in the middle of the room, some crazy chairs, a crazy stove on which is a samovar with some crazy tea. In a corner of the room is a low vaulted door which opens on rickety stairs descending to a black cellar.
THE CAST OF (WANT OF) CHARACTERS
Stylipin
A Thief
Yatschscha
His Wife
Patch
An Imbecile
Hootch
A Homicidal Maniac
Itch
A Paragoric
All these are in the room already when the play begins.
Later the following further want of characters come in, namely:
Pravda (aged eighty)
An Immoral Woman
Prybiloff
A Murderer
Their entry is kept until a little later to brighten things up in case they get dull.
When the curtain rises, Itch the Paragoric is lying on a truckle bed, under dirty bedclothes, in a corner of the room. He is evidently dying by inches, in fact by centimeters: his feet are already ossified. In short he is quite sick.
Patch, the Imbecile, is making faces at himself in a broken looking-glass. Hootch, the Homicidal Maniac, is sharpening a butcher’s knife. Stylipin and Yatschscha are drinking vodka out of dirty glasses at the crazy table. In other words it’s a regular Russian home scene.
Itch (sitting up in bed): I’m hungry.
Stylipin: Shut up.
Itch: Give me some water, I’m thirsty.
Stylipin: Shut up, or I’ll choke you.
Yatschscha: That’s right. Choke him. (Aside) He has money under his bed, in the mattress. I saw it yesterday. Choke him and take it.
Stylipin (aside): Later.
Itch: Mother Pravda, Mother Pravda, give me some food!
Stylipin: Shut up, I say. She’s out. Mother Pravda is out.
Itch: I’m dying.
The Imbecile (with sudden laughter): He’s dying! Ha, ha! Isn’t he lucky. He’s dying!
(Itch falls back on his bed. There is a gurgling in his throat. Nobody pays any more attention to him.)
Stylipin (turns to Yatschscha): Where is that money you brought in from the street?
Yatschscha: I brought no money from the street.
Stylipin: You’re lying, you foul huzzy. Give it or I’ll beat you!
(He picks up a stick. Patch, the idiot, claps his hands with insane laughter.)
Patch: Ha! ha! Beat her! That’s right, beat her.
Stylipin: Give me the money, or I’ll choke you.
(He takes Yatschscha by the throat and begins to choke her. Strange cries come from her. The idiot capers and chuckles.)
Hootch: Choke her! That’s it! choke her.
Hootch (the homicidal maniac): Stop your accursed noise. Do you want to bring the whole street in on us? Stop, I say, there’s some one coming down the steps.
(All are still a moment, their motions arrested as they stand. Only the gurgling noise is still heard from the throat of Itch the paragoric.)
